Farah Runs 3:28, Americans Tune Up In Monaco

Jenny Simpson, shown here winning the 2011 1500m world championship in South Korea, has rekindled her old form. Photo: PhotoRun.net

The 2013 IAAF World Championships will take place Aug. 10-18 in Moscow.

It was a big night on the track at the IAAF Diamond League meet on Friday night in Monaco.

American Jenny Simpson was in top form winning the 1500m run in a season-best 4:00.48, while double Olympic champion Mo Farah broke Steve Cram’s 28-year 1,500m British record with a 3:28.81 effort.

Simpson has seemed to regain the form she had in 2011, when she won the 1500m world championship in South Korea. Reunited with her college coaches, Mark Wetmore and Heather Burroughs, Simpson has run well in two 1500m races and also won the 5,000 at the U.S. championships in June. She’ll be among the favorites in the 1500m at this year’s world championships next month in Moscow. Meanwhile, fellow Americans Shannon Rowbury (4:01.28) and Gabriele Anderson (4:01.68) also ran well, finishing fourth and fifth, respectively.

One of Simpson’s training partners in Boulder, Shalaya Kipp, placed fourth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in a season-best 9:37.23. In the process, she surpassed the A-standard for the world championships, punching her ticket to Moscow, too.

The most impressive effort of the night came from Kenya’s Edwin Cheruiyot Soi, who won the 5,000m in a world-leading 12:51.34 with a 0.62-second margin over Bahrain’s Albert Rup. (American Galen Rupp was sixth in a season-best 13:05.17.)

Farah finished second to Kenya’s Asbel Kiprop, the 2011 world champion who won in a world-leading 3:27.72. Farah, a Brit who trains in Portland, Ore., with Rupp under coach Alberto Salazar, also became 1500m European record-holder by finishing in 3:28.81. American Matthew Centrowitz was eighth in a season-best 3:33:58, while fellow U.S. runner Nick Symmonds set a personal best of 3:34.55 while finishing 10th. American Leo Manzano, the silver medalist in the event at last year’s Olympics, was a distant 13th in 3;44.59.